Rosie Baker is Marketing Week’s specialist on sustainability and retail.
Why would women want the Lynx Effect?
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I can’t fathom why the Lynx brand would appeal to women. The brand has until now targeted men, only men and a particular type of man/boy at that.
Lynx’s marketing strategy and creativity is unrivalled in the way it pushes boundaries and tries out new technologies. It is so relentlessly “Lynx” that it can only be applauded, whatever your view on the way it depicts women and for that matter, men.
There are some exceedingly clever marketing brains working on the brand both in the UK and around the world working on Axe, the brand name it uses elsewhere.
The latest stunt, to launch a “his n hers” product with a female fragrance, just doesn’t seem right to me.
Lynx’s marketing has until now excluded women (unless you count the hordes of scantily clad women and “angels” that flock towards Lynx-wearing men in ads) in a way that has allowed it to be phenomenally successful men’s brand, but one that has zero appeal to women.
It’s because Lynx is so well marketed as a lad’s brand that lads like it. That’s also the reason that I don’t think women will.
Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:35 am
Whilst it has been aggressively marketed towards men, a quick look at the lynx facebook page shows that a great deal of women do like the smell of lynx, and indeed many appear wear it themselves. So I think to say it has zero appeal to women is misleading, as there is appeal, but whether this is from the marketing side, or simply the product itself, is unclear.
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Rachel Felwick | Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:25 am
I think we may be neglecting to recall how it feels to be 15 years old - this afterall is the Lynx/Axe target market (15-24). It's a time of heightened sexuality and personal discovery, and girls are often looking for ways to create an affinity with the opposite sex.
Because it has such a strong foothold in the male market, its 'sister' product could actually be more appealing to girls.
I think the tension between the two products quite strongly reflects that of being a teenager, however I do think the team here has neglected to address the properties of the packaging to appeal to a female market - there are differences in boys and girls that should not be forgotten.
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Ruth Mortimer | Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:25 am
Some good points here. But perhaps this will appeal to the same set of women who buy Playboy branded merchandise.
I've always wondered what kind of girl would want to buy a brand that is set up purely for its appeal to men.
But some women actively like the idea of appealing to guys with their clothes/make-up/perfume and see brands like Playboy as a way to do that.
So perhaps there is a set of female consumers out there who think that associating themselves with the images of female sexiness promoted by the Lynx ads will be a good thing.
Or perhaps Lynx have more marketing up their sleeves to appeal to women with some fantasy men.
Either way, it will certainly be interesting to see if you are right and women will find this unappealing or if simply by appealing to blokes, Lynx has a group of women keen to sample its wares.
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Andrea Griffiths | Wed, 25 Jan 2012 1:26 pm
I wonder if Lynx have sufficiently researched the impact of this on male sales, and whether men will feel the same about the brand when it loses its 'maleness' becoming a unisex product, especially if it doesn't have the appeal they are hoping for with women.
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George Vekic | Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:14 am
I think there may be an element of the 'Yorkie effect', where some women are challenging the brand's laddish and sometimes chauvinistic tendencies. Lynx have cottoned on to this and have created a product for the ladette niche. "It's not for girls... or is it?"
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